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Communication | Telecom
Communications especially the telecommunications in Costa Rica is
quite well developed, sophisticated and modern. The basic
requirement of telecom services are metered out by the ICE or the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad. This particular
establishment is one that is owned by the state and it was formed in
1963 after it got separated from the postal services.
This particular service provider has a subsidiary that is known as
the Radiográfica Costarricense or the RASCA. This subsidiary of the
Radiográfica Costarricense provides innumerable services like the
telegraph, provides telex, data transmission, video conferencing,
facsimile, Internet access, data and other value-added services.
The Radiográfica Costarricense also provides a regional data network for
some of the neighboring countries like Honduras, El Salvador and
Nicaragua. This is done without the packet switching networks that
are available.
The Asamblea Legislativa is Costa Rica's legislative body and this
body in 1999 approved of the law that would have helped to
liberalize the telecommunications industry of Costa Rica. The
legislation spoke about the splitting of the Instituto Costarricense
de Electricidad into two different companies that would be known as
the ICElec and the ICEtel. The ICEtel would be selling the various
services while the other body that is the ICElec would be selling
power.
This was the second stage that would have liberalized the
entire process especially the long distance phone markets and also
the local phone markets of the land of Costa Rica. These efforts
were foiled to a great extent by the trade union of the Instituto
Costarricense de Electricidad. Workers feared the privatization of
the company and so the entire process had to be stalled.
A
commission had been set up after this furore but no alternative plan
could be decided upon and so the scene does look a bit grim and it
is unlikely that Costa Rica will be ever able to go in for the
liberalization policy of the telecommunications sector in the coming
decades.
Telecommunications in the land of Costa Rica was first started by a
US based company in the year 1989. But in 1993 the Constitutional
Court of Costa Rica declared that the cellular concession was a
violation of a clause in the Costa Rican constitution and after this
a fierce legal battle ensued.
The company was literally forced t
shut down in the month of May in 1995. It was after this incident
that the ICE started to offer cellular services from the month of
August in the year 1994. Then in mid 1998 the government of Costa
Rica decided to sell a B- Band cellular license though this law also
has to be amended.
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